ElectriCChain Solar PV Monitoring on the block-chain
ElectriCChain is a non-profit registered in Andorra, the purpose of the project is to 'connect 7 million global solar facilities watching the skies 24/7 and posting live solar data to 1 Blockchain for scientists, researchers and human progress.'.
We have taken several steps towards this goal:
The first was compiling the SolarCoin core daemon to work on SBCs (Single Board Computers) like the Raspberry Pi, this allows the monitring to occur at very low cost/energy usage, and demonstrates the ability to embed into existing SolarPV hardware.
The second step was developing code to monitor a live solar installation and insert the data into the block-chain, this was achieved in early 2017, and the code has been refined and improved continuously.
The latest step achieved is to read the block-chain, extract the data and visualize that data. Here are those first early readings showing we now have a fully operating Proof of Concept
I will be demonstrating this at Solar & Storage Live at the NEC in Birmingham UK next week, as well as promoting ElectriCChain and SolarCoin at that event.
The future is bright, the future is Block-Chain.
Very interesting application for a blockchain! Is this for photovoltaic only or also for hot water panels?
AFAIK I dont think there is a way to measure the energy production of hot water panels accurately
Its a real innivotive and forward thinking project. Love it. What possible uses can you share that the science community may make of the data for? Upvoted.
Thanks. Well consider each solar panel is effectively a very accurate monitor of solar energy reaching the ground, so that tells us about the atmosphere above the installation, useful for climate science.
Also, for grid operators, believe it or not they don't really know how much energy solar is producing. Huge solar plants can talk to the grid, but how do you get every single house with panels to share data? I spoke to someone from one if the energy companies here in the UK, they just deal in aggregate production/demand, they have no detailed data.
I would also think this could be used to monitor hardware performance over many systems and give data about common issues to manufacturers and developers of solar PV equipment.
There are probably a lot if applications I didn't think of, the data just doesn't exist today, it's all siloed behind different servers.
I'm not going to pretend I completely understand the science behind it, but I was reading your list of applications it can relate to and was reminded of an article awhile back about the solar convention in Vegas.
In the article they mentioned we're reaching the point soon where we'll be able to pick between panels that work better in rain areas, cloudy areas or straight sun areas.
I'm thinking your plan if already tracking panels around the world will give people the data they need to make that choice.
"Your neighbours panels told us they should be spread out more..."
Yeah that's a good point, one if the things we have been discussing is localization of the data to spot 'outliers' in terms of solar installs of similar size but with different output.
To be honest I'm not that technical on the solar energy side, I just tinker around with this software trying to make it a bit better each week; I leave it to smarter minds to make use of it all :)
Great information. Scientific inventions are very helpful to humans!